Dallas Public Library launches Recollect platform to widen access to special collections

Misty Nagarri, manager of the Dallas History and Archives Division at Dallas Public Library, demonstrated Recollect, a new digital platform that the library said gives the public “easy access to digital content from Dallas Public Library.” The demonstration took place during the Municipal Library Board regular meeting on May 20, 2025.

Nut graf: Recollect is intended to make special collections more discoverable to the general public, not only researchers. Nagarri told the board the platform hosts photographs, maps, videos, audio recordings and scanned documents and includes searchability features and tools for community-sourced “recollections.”

Nagarri said Recollect currently includes material from Dallas History and Archives and the Genealogy Division. She highlighted the Mary Ann Butts collection — “over 58,000 photographic negatives” from an African American commercial photographer — and said the library is adding items to that set regularly. Nagarri also demonstrated an interactive map connected to collection pages and pointed to the Veterans Oral History Project, developed in partnership with a librarian who used the Library of Congress veterans oral history field guide as a model.

The platform supports full-text search of scanned documents using OCR, Nagarri said, and allows users to add personal recollections to images. “If you remember, Miss Charles, you can add your memory of that,” she said, describing the site’s crowd-sourcing features. Staff described workflows for creating metadata (date ranges, people, places) to improve discoverability and said items already scanned into other systems were migrated into Recollect.

Nagarri cited several specialized digitization efforts already under way: a multi-year project to scan City of Dallas building permit books (covering roughly 1905 through the 1970s), a Text TREASURES–funded project to digitize photographs from the Juanita Craft collection (hundreds of images), and a community-led effort to digitize McGowan Funeral Home programs. She said the building permit books are being stitched and transcribed to make names, streets and house numbers searchable.

Nagarri also showcased the Veterans Oral History videos and said the library is using the platform to present video and audio clips that previously were difficult to share. She identified genealogy librarian Amanda Diaz as the staff member who brought the veterans project forward and named Ed Borringer as a staff member featured in the oral histories.

Staff said the public can reach Recollect through a link on dallaslibrary.org or by going directly to the Recollect URL. Nagarri said the site first went live Feb. 14 and that staff plan additional promotion tied to forthcoming website updates and outreach efforts. She said the library uses Google Analytics to monitor usage but had not compiled a complete traffic report for the board during the meeting.

Ending: Nagarri encouraged community participation to add context and memories to items and described training opportunities for volunteers who want to help transcribe or scan materials. She said branch-focused neighborhood collections are a likely next step as staff expand the platform.